Bryant and Lakers Have the Answer for Iverson

The shootout turned into a shutdown.

Allen Iverson, the fastest shot in the East, on Sunday ran into Kobe Bryant, the long and lanky trigger man for what suddenly is the best defense in the West.

The darting, daring 76er guard ran at him, tried to run past him, ran into logjams and, at the sputtering end, just about ran up a white flag.

For every crackling minute of the Lakers’ 87-84 victory before a sellout crowd at the First Union Center, especially in a brilliant second half in which he held Iverson, the NBA’s leading scorer, without a point, Bryant had an answer and often a hand in his face or on the ball.

In the penultimate defensive stand of the game, with the Lakers protecting a one-point lead with less than five seconds left, Iverson raced into the lane with Bryant at his side, then had his jump shot swatted away by Bryant.

On Iverson’s last desperate three-pointer at the buzzer to try to tie the score, Shaquille O’Neal flew out and spiked the ball away.

Bang-bang, you’ve lost.

“I didn’t even think about it, to tell you the truth,” Bryant said of holding Iverson to 0-for-11 shooting (including three shots blocked by Bryant in the fourth quarter alone) in the second half.

“I went out there to do the job and try to win the basketball game. . . . It’s cool. But I’m just proud to win, though.”

For the most part, Bryant, half a foot taller than Iverson, chased Iverson around screens and through dives into the lane, funneling him to O’Neal and the other Laker shot-blockers and swiping at the ball from behind when possible.

“[Bryant] played well,” O’Neal said. “He had a lot of help. We knew what the focus of the offense was going to be, and we knew [Iverson] was going to get his 20-25 shots, we just had to contain him to a certain amount of points.

“And [Bryant] did a good job. And I tried to tell him if Iverson passed him, just trail him and bring him into me. We didn’t want him to get his mid-range game going, so Kobe just chased him all the way to the basket, and I was there.”

Bryant, nursing a jammed right index finger from Friday night’s game, tied a career high with five blocked shots, scored eight of his 18 points in the fourth quarter and was the spark the Lakers needed in a critical fourth-quarter 9-0 surge that lifted them to their seventh consecutive victory.

O’Neal had an off shooting night, making only nine of his 22 shots, but grabbed 16 rebounds and was only one assist short of registering his first triple-double as a Laker, which tied his career-best mark for assists.

And Glen Rice continued his recent offensive renaissance, scoring 18 points on seven-for-11 shooting, and added five assists.

The key throughout, however, was the Laker defense, which gave up 41 points to Iverson in a loss here last season, but held Philadelphia to 38.8% field-goal shooting Sunday, which offset the 76ers’ 51-39 rebounding edge.

“I think that’s the difference in our ballclub this year as opposed to last year,” Bryant said. “We’ve always had offensive firepower, but this year we’re able to hold teams down. And that’s how you win these ballgames.”

Could Laker Coach Phil Jackson envision holding Iverson, who was averaging 30.9 points before Sunday’s game, scoreless in a half?

“No, that’s a fluke,” Jackson said. “I’m surprised anybody could hold him, yeah. It was team defense. I think Kobe would admit that. But I think he did a good job shagging him.”

Jackson said that he told Bryant that this was his best defensive performance of the season; Bryant answered that he thought he’d had better ones, then later conceded with a grin that he was just trying to make an argument.

“When he focuses and keeps his mind on what he’s doing and he doesn’t try to steal the ball and just plays real solid focused defense, he’s extremely good,” Jackson said. “And this was it.”

It was the Lakers’ fourth victory on this six-game trip and raised their record to 41-11, but most important it was their fourth consecutive victory pulled out with almost-perfect fourth-quarter defense.

“It shows that we’re growing as a basketball team,” guard Ron Harper said. “We don’t just rely on our offense, because we haven’t scored a lot.”

Said O’Neal: “We’re playing good defense, we’re winning in hostile arenas and we’re playing good team ball. If we keep this up, we should go pretty far.

“I didn’t have a good night offensively, but I just tried to do other stuff and Kobe took over there in the fourth quarter and Glen hit a couple shots, Robert hit a couple shots . . .

“When you’re on a good team, that happens.”

KEY TO VICTORY

The Lakers, particularly Kobe Bryant, put the clamps on 76er guard Allen Iverson, the NBA’s leading scorer. Iverson’s statistics:

FIRST HALF

Points: 16

Assists: 3

FG: 7-14

SECOND HALF

Points:0

Assists:5

FG: 0-11

PORTLAND ROLLS ON

Wallace leads Trail Blazers to 108-103 overtime victory at Sacramento.

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